Helium has become one of the hidden pressure points in the global technology economy.

It cools MRI machines and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, supports rocket launches, enables fibre-optic production, and helps advanced research systems operate at temperatures close to absolute zero.

Yet most of the world’s helium is recovered as a byproduct of natural gas production. This leaves customers reliant on a small group of major facilities whose helium output depends on demand for another commodity. Even leading producers such as QatarEnergy cannot quickly raise helium supply when demand increases. Producing more helium first requires them to produce and sell more natural gas.

That structural weakness has repeatedly exposed hospitals, chip manufacturers, aerospace companies, and research institutions to shortages, allocations, and sudden price increases.

It has also brought fresh investor attention to Pulsar Helium Inc., whose Topaz Project in northern Minnesota is being developed as a dedicated, primary source of helium rather than a secondary product from conventional natural gas production.

On June 30, Pulsar announced that its wholly owned subsidiary had signed a binding letter agreement to proceed with a U.S.-based industrial gas equipment company to reserve a helium purification and liquefaction plant for possible deployment in Minnesota.

The proposed equipment package carries an indicative price of approximately US$78.7 million and includes helium purification and liquefaction equipment, carbon dioxide capture systems, compression, storage, controls, spares, and related services.

Reserving the plant is important because helium cannot be sold to major industrial users in raw form. The gas must be separated from the rest of the production stream, purified and, for many customers, cooled into a liquid for transportation and use.

The proposed plant would be capable of producing approximately 940 litres of liquid helium per hour, equal to about 22,560 litres per day or 8.2 million litres per year. It would also be designed to capture approximately 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide per day, potentially creating a second commercial product from the Topaz gas stream.

If acquired, installed and commissioned, the plant would become Minnesota’s first helium liquefaction facility and could process gas from Topaz as well as third-party sources.

That third-party processing option could be particularly relevant to financing.

Pulsar believes the facility may be able to generate revenue by processing gas for other producers before Topaz reaches full production, providing an earlier source of cash flow while giving the company control of the infrastructure required for its own development.

Pulsar is evaluating a mix of commercial debt, project finance, equipment finance, and future operating revenues to fund the plant.

Abraham-James has said management would favour a debt-heavy structure, potentially involving at least 60% debt, to limit shareholder dilution and allow Pulsar to retain ownership of the project and processing infrastructure.

“This is not a small pilot plant,” Abraham-James said. “It is the type of infrastructure that can move Pulsar into meaningful commercial production.”

The proposed facility would be supplied by Topaz, where Pulsar has drilled seven wells and encountered gas in every one of them.

Those results point to a gas system with concentrations several times higher than the grades generally needed for commercial helium recovery. High grades can reduce the amount of raw gas that must be processed for each unit of helium produced, a potential advantage that still needs to be confirmed through a formal economic study. 

“We know it is high grade, we know the gas flows naturally to surface, and the system remains open in all directions,” Abraham-James said.

The company controls approximately 65,000 gross acres under exclusive leases and owns the surface rights at the discovery site. Roads already connect the area, and three-phase power is about 5.5 miles away.

Abraham-James said helium occurrences found about 100 miles south of Topaz support the possibility that the discovery forms part of a broader regional system rather than an isolated pocket of gas.

“For helium, you need a different mindset,” he said. “The source rocks, migration pathways, and reservoirs are different from conventional hydrocarbons.”

That approach is central to Pulsar’s strategy.

The company deliberately searched outside established oil and gas basins for primary helium systems, where helium itself could support the economics of development.

The first independent estimate, based mainly on the Jetstream #1 well, indicated that Topaz could contain about 400 million cubic feet of recoverable helium-4. Additional wells have since been completed, but their results have not yet been incorporated into an updated resource calculation.

That creates one of the company’s most important near-term catalysts.

Pulsar plans to drill between two and four production-ready wells later this year, at an estimated cost of about US$2 million per well. Those wells would complement two existing wells considered suitable for future production.

The company intends to follow the drilling with an updated independent resource and its first formal economic analysis.

“The market needs an independent resource update and its first clear view of the project’s economics,” said Abraham-James, adding that the new plant reservation gives that work a clearer commercial destination.

Topaz may also contain more than one saleable product.

The gas stream includes carbon dioxide, which the proposed plant would be equipped to capture. Pulsar believes CO2 sales or third-party processing could provide additional revenue, although commercial agreements have not yet been announced.

The more unusual opportunity is helium-3.

Helium-3 is exceptionally rare because very little is naturally produced on Earth. Much of the available supply has historically come from the decay of tritium used in nuclear programs, leaving production limited and largely controlled by governments.

Its scarcity is so severe that scientists and companies have explored the possibility of mining it from the Moon, where solar winds have deposited small quantities in the lunar surface over billions of years.

Pulsar’s significance is that it has identified helium-3 in a natural gas stream on Earth that could potentially be developed using conventional wells and gas-processing equipment.

Pulsar said the results so far rank among the highest publicly reported helium-3 concentrations from a natural gas reservoir to have been independently confirmed by multiple U.S. federal laboratories.

The company does not currently rely on helium-3 revenue to support the base economics of Topaz. Helium-4 remains the core product.

That leaves helium-3 as a potentially valuable additional revenue stream if Pulsar can recover it economically and secure buyers.

“The helium-4 supports the core development case,” Abraham-James said. “Helium-3 is the wild card.” 

The helium-4 market is considerably larger and more established.

Approximately 95% of global helium-4 is produced alongside natural gas. Output is concentrated among a relatively small group of facilities in the United States, Qatar, Russia, and a handful of other jurisdictions.

Independent market research firm, IDTechEx forecasts global helium demand will climb by more than 80% by 2035, led by semiconductor manufacturing and rising demand from healthcare, aerospace, and advanced technology.

The company’s regulatory position has also advanced.

When Pulsar began working in Minnesota in 2019, the state had no history of oil or gas production and no established framework for helium development.

Legislation adopted in 2024 allowed the state to begin regulating helium, followed by additional measures in 2026 that established a clearer pathway toward leasing, permitting, and production.

“Minnesota has moved at remarkable speed to create a regulatory pathway for an industry that did not previously exist in the state,” Abraham-James said.

Pulsar also holds the Tunu Project in East Greenland, where it has identified a primary helium occurrence and completed seismic work. Drilling remains the next major step at Tunu, which management views as a longer-term opportunity to supply European customers.

For now, the focus remains firmly on Minnesota.

Following Pulsar Helium’s Top Pick accolade from the Investor Breakout Exchange forum held at the CEM Bermuda Capital Event, CEO Thomas Abraham-James discussed the company’s high-grade discovery, plant strategy, and upcoming milestones.

“It moves us from being solely a discovery and appraisal story toward the infrastructure required for production.

Helium has to be processed, purified, and liquefied before it can be sold into the major industrial markets. Reserving the equipment gives us a potential accelerated route to that capability. The proposed plant would have meaningful capacity. It would be capable of producing approximately 940 litres of liquid helium per hour and capturing about 300 tonnes of CO2 per day.

It could also give us the ability to generate third-party processing revenue before Topaz reaches full production, while providing the infrastructure needed to process our own gas once the production wells and permits are in place.”

“We have signed a binding letter agreement and limited notice to proceed, but several important conditions remain.

We need to complete the definitive agreement, finalize the equipment scope, complete due diligence, and secure financing. Delivery, commissioning, regulatory approvals, and final title confirmations also have to be addressed. We are evaluating commercial debt, equipment finance, project finance, and revenues from gas production and processing.

Our objective is to finance the plant in a way that allows us to retain ownership while minimizing dilution for shareholders.”

“The production-well program is the first major catalyst.

That will be followed by an updated independent resource and the first formal economic assessment for Topaz. The plant agreement now gives that work a direct route toward processing and liquefaction.

Investors should also watch the financing plan, permitting progress, and the completion of the definitive equipment agreement. Helium-3 remains another important part of the story. We are not relying on it for the core project economics, but the concentrations found at Topaz give us something unusual and potentially very valuable.

The key milestones are production wells, resource growth, project economics, plant financing, and a clear path toward construction and commissioning.”

The 7th Annual TSX Venture Growth Capital Event will take place July 17–19, 2026, at the Delta Grand Okanagan Resort in Kelowna, British Columbia. This gathering will mark another milestone for CEM as it stages its 100th Capital Event. Built around curated one-on-one meetings, high-value networking, and relaxed relationship-building through golf and wine tours, the event creates a focused setting for companies to tell their story, build investor interest, and open new conversations.

Warm Regards and Happy Investing,

Fabian Dawson

Each week, CEM Partner and Portfolio Manager, Ryan Iverson, spotlights the ideas and companies sparking investor interest form emerging growth stories to the Top Pick featured across CEM’s Capital Events. This series brings real insights from the annotators shaping tomorrow’s markets and reveals where investors are finding the next breakout opportunities.